Darth Ashla and the start of force magic
by BMarshal
Summary: The story of Dale and he came to be known as Darth Ashla. The story behind force magic, and how it spread to the galaxy.


**The Story Begins… approximately 26,000 BBY**

The Je'daii Order ordered a few dozen scouts to go through unknown hyperspace to explore the galaxy. Some to the deep core, and others to the far outer rim. One of those scout's ships had the strange occurrence to go through a worm-hole while in hyperspace. The Je'daii scout was working on repairing some minor interior damage when the ship lurched, and he was impaled by an engine part he was working on. The ship dropped out of hyperspace in uncharted space, did a quick scan and found a breathable planet fourth from its star. The occupant was slowing his metabolism, to stop the blood flow and calling for the medical droid.

The ship was designed so the three droids on board could pilot, fix, and run the ship –so it came down in remote mountainous area. The ship also had a radar blocking device, and while not a true cloaking device – it worked very well against primitive technology. So his ship wasn't seen landing expect by a lone man standing on the mountain – comp templating his life. Strange he thought, and went to investigate. Just when he thought of ending his life, something new had come into it.

The ship landed and the small droid along with the humanoid droid went outside to check out the exterior of the ship, as the planet's man approached. The linguistics droid quickly puzzled out his language and determined the stranger not to be hostile so introductions were done. The man walked through the opening into the ship, and his life was quickly changing. Seeing the injured Je'daii he immediately went to try and help him. The Je'daii was nearly unconscious when he met the stranger, but he could tell that he was a force sensitive – and that he was strong with the Ashla (light side of the force). In a fainted voice he told the droids – do whatever he says, he's in control until I regain consciousness – and with that he passed out.

After an hour introduction to the spacecraft – the stranger, Dale determined that the droids had fixed the ship. The minor repair that the Je'daii XornY had been working was completed, and the ship checked out as being fine. All systems were run through a diagnostic, and the ship was found space worthy. Dale ordered the droids to retrace their trail back through the wormhole before it disappeared. The droids were able to pilot the scout ship "JadeOrn" back through the strange anomaly and back to 'known space.'

Dale inserted an 'activation' code into each of the three droids. Basically with a command word, he would over-ride any other orders. In essence he put a code in to take command of the droids when the time was right. XornY had told the droids to do "whatever he says," and Dale took advantage of it. Later in his training he would acknowledge that the Boga was also strong in him, playing a role at the earliest chance. Eventually the Je'daii awoke, although very weakened, but somehow alive. The scouts were very resourceful, and had great command of both sides of the force, for the Je'daii believed in balance, or at least those that they sent out as scouts had to because you never knew what you might find as you expanded known space.

XornY decided to take Dale as a Force Apprentice, and bring him along on the scouting mission for the rest of his five year mission. XornY had only been on his mission for a little over a year when the accident happened, and it took him a full six months afterwards to heal up to anywhere near where he was before the accident. This gave Dale plenty of time to get to know the ship, the droids, and more about space travel. It also gave him plenty of alone time to practice his mediation skills, do some reading on a host of subjects, and to practice the minor Ashla force skills that he was learning.

During the six months that XornY was spending most of his time either in his room or the medical bay. Dale used his command code on the medical droid to get some advance technology healing of his own. He was able to get injected with some life extending drugs that changed his physical form. His species considered 80 years old, 90 very old, and 100 venerable. Using the technology on the JadeOrn he had his DNA sequenced and his body injected with some reverse aging technology that was meant for healing. It had profound effects on his human form.

Dale was 45 years old when "the force found you" as XornY would say. After the medical injections and six months of Ashla force practice he looked 35 and felt 25 again. According to the medical droid he should live to be between 120 and 140 now, and it great health until at least 110. His knees and back didn't hurt, his flexibility was back, and he lost 15 percent of his body fat while regaining a lost 10 percent of muscle mass due to the effects of aging. It was a needed six months because training got more intense once XornY was once again up and more mobile.

During the next year XornY used one of the artificial ruby colored gems to help Dale create his first lightsaber. It had a red glow and was 'pretty standard' in design according to XornY. Dale took to his lightsaber training. He had spent his whole life in the martial arts, and this felt like a highpoint of all his training. Dale started TKD at age 7, earning his black belt ten years later. Then in college he studied Kendo for two years, and Aikido for the next two. As a police officer he studied Hapkido for three years before he got his federal Marshals job. Then he moved and studied JKD for the next ten years at his first placement. The following fifteen years would spent studying in the Bujinkan as the Marshals moved him back across the country near to where he had been a police officer. It was during this last fifteen years that Dale had also become a chaplain. Having faced the dark side of his job, he sought the light for explanations. XornY would say that he was a born to be a Je'daii.

During the final two years of the deep space exploring mission Dale's use of the Ashla force slowed in advancement. XornY taught that all users develop at their own speed, and have their own set of skills and not to let it get him down. XornY admitted to being heavily influenced by the Ashla, and perhaps Dale was just more inclined to the Boga side of the force. When they got back to the Je'daii order he could find a new mentor to help him continue his force development.

While Dale's powers with the force slowed, his lightsaber training continued to improve. They were lucky enough to find a wide array of gems in those last two years and Dale constructed three other lightsabers. First was a silver colored one. Second was a gold one. His third was a purple colored one. Each developed away from his basic design in the red colored one. More and more of himself was put into each, and he trained differently with each. Learning and developing in four separate lightsaber combat modes. XornY was a single blade user, but Dale practiced not only with one, but using two at once as well. He even used his telekinetic abilities to incorporate a third saber attacking on its own. In those four years with XornY he developed as a first rate Lightsaber force user probably due to his nearly 40 years of martial arts experience before then. Dale had learned a great deal about the Je'daii and the new Galactic Republic that was being formed. A course of action was coming into focus, but it took another accident of the force to push it forward.

JadeOrn most closely resembled a small 'bird of prey' space craft from an old conquered K-class Empire. With XornY, his small power astro combo droid, his linguistic repair droid, and his medical droid engineering assistant droid he could run the ship smoothly. It was a deep scout ship, and held a huge amount of various supplies meant to keep it in solo action for five plus years. Plenty of room for Dale and XornY to train in, and plenty of stuff to train with.

When they finally got back to the Galactic Republic Dale was fairly comfortable in the space ship, and with the new technology. His original feeling of being over-whelmed came back in part after they docked and he got out of the JadeOrn. It took XornY a couple of weeks but he finally introduced Dale to the Luminous Ones, as they called themselves. They could sense both the Ashla and Boga within him, and agreed to take Dale as one of their warrior priests. XornY thanked him again for saving his life three times, and Dale thanked his first master for saving his life as well.

The Luminous Ones where officially a sect of the Je'daii, although a misunderstood and mistrusted group within the larger Ashla force users. The Luminous Ones stressed a balance of both sides of the force, and therefore taught their apprentices Boga techniques. They instructed Dale for the next four years. The first year was spent in what they called Purification. It focused on strict discipline, controlling one's emotions, and the Ashla exclusively. It reminded Dale a lot of his training with XornY, but it was also different.

There was no lightsaber training at all, but there was much more Ashla force using training than he was used to. He learned a great deal during this time, as there was mandatory reading hours incorporated into the daily routines. Dale learned different mind focusing techniques, different mediation styles, how to exclude pain, hunger, sleep along with how to control his metabolism. He learned great push pull powers and more subtle uses of them. He started learning the various healing arts with the force. The year flew by, and every season he would have a different Ashla master overseeing him. After four seasons he was told that the force lives in a cycle, and that it was now time to move into his empowerment training.

The next year Dale focused solely on Boga force training, or at least to the degree that the Luminous Order practiced it. Dale took to the Boga with enthusiasm. Just as his first instructor had suspected Dale's force powers flourished using the Boga force. Lightsaber training was re-introduced and he excelled to a greater degree than his masters expected. They said that if he concentrated for years he could be saber saint, and while the idea held some appear Dale didn't give it serious consideration. He learned to embrace his emotions, and use their power. The trick was not to let the emotions overwhelm you so that you lost control to the Boga. You had to learn to ride the wave, as they said.

The force was taught in more aggressive fashion – the push pull techniques now having truly damaging affects pointed out to him. His imagination was stretched, and his limits were stretched. A stone, a star fighter, and he was told even a star itself are only in the minds of the user. He was introduced to the storm producing abilities of the Boga, and experimented briefly with force lightning. Again like in his purification; his empowerment training had been broken into four separate stages with four different masters overseeing his progress. The second year ended all too quickly for Dale.

He was onto his third year, the hardest yet. It was a combination of the first two years titled impeccability. Dale learned to weave the Ashla and the Boga together, to flow from one to the other and to allow the force to flow into what it needed to do for the situation. He experimented with transforming the lightsaber combat he had learned over the past six years into his own style. He continued his research into the force, with an emphasis on balance. As before he lived in a cycle and every season a new master came to oversee him.

The first season was more focused on the Ashla, with the second focused more on the Boga; however, both of those incorporated the other into the training. The third and four cycles of the year were truly difficult as he learned to flow from one to the other and back and back and back again. It was exhausting and highly enlightening, but the third year also quickly came to an end for Dale.

The fourth year was what the Luminous Ones called the quest. Each new Luminous One, for that is what they called him at a graduation ceremony was sent out on a quest. Ideally it could be completed in a year, but sometimes they took longer. Only the force would direct the Luminous One, and when you came back there would be another ceremony and you would officially join the Luminous Order.

The other Je'daii had their own trials that they underwent, but they were more supervised. The Luminous Order's final test was a quest that the students underwent on their own; somewhere off planet guided by the force. The Je'daii didn't fully understand the Luminous ones, but they also knew that there were no better scouts for exploring the unknown. They also understood that Ashla was always reigned supreme in their force training, and so they begrudgingly accepted the small sect within the larger Je'daii order.

Dale had decided early on that his quest was to go to the source of the Boga training back to the Boga priests. He had researched a world on which the Boga side was strong and borrowing the JadeOrn from his original master XornY he flew there. The Boga priests could feel the Boga within him, and while they didn't approve of the Luminous Order, per se; he was accepted as one of their new apprentices. What he didn't tell them was that he was planning on leaving in a year.

As far as the Boga priests knew Dale had turned his back on the Ashla and was embracing his darker side. The year flew by and Dale learned a lot more about the Boga than he thought he would. There were secrets that the Luminous order didn't know about. His lightsaber combat took on an aggressive training and power style that incorporated offensive force use as well. His control over lighting increased in precision and in size, being able to summon a force storm with a forty meter diameter around him. Little did Dale know that his Boga masters considered him a gift, one of the ancient ones reborn. His natural affinity blossomed under the Boga priests, and his powers grew to new heights.

Dale was to learn an unfortunate side effect of long term Boga use as the priests betrayed him. Dale had been open about his past, but when he thanked them and said that he was going to return to the Luminous Order to study more on the balance of the force they said they would throw him a going away celebration. The Boga masters had no intention of letting their star pupil return to the Luminous sect, so they decided to trap him in stasis. Perhaps a century in a hibernation tube would shape him up.

After enough time all the Luminous Order masters he knew would be gone, and perhaps he would no longer feel a pull to rejoin them. The hibernation tubes were not used so often anymore. In the early years of space travel they were the common way to survive the long distances between planets. Once hyperspace was discovered and safely integrated into the Ancient Empire they went away mostly. One could still find them if you searched enough medical stations. Sometimes a rare disease or infection would see the patient frozen in time for a century or two until hopefully a cure would come about.

The longest known successful revitalization of a patient in hibernation was a little over three hundred years, and the medical literature told that the patient had taken weeks to readjust. What the Boga planned, and what actually happened, would make Dale a Galactic record holder, if anyone were to ever find out. They had planned on only making him sleep for a century.

The Boga Priests drugged his food so that he would be extra sleepy, and unable to use the force effectively. They dragged him to a hibernation tube that they had found and strapped him in. Well the party went on and on through the night, and the time setting on Dale's tube kept going longer and longer. First 100 years, then 200, then 300, and then one of the priests pointed out that Force would allow the subject to survive longer so they decided to set a record with Dale and put it 500. Later in the night a particularly nasty Boga priest came and set it for 1000, or at least he thought he had.

What accidently happened, although in the words of XornY 'there are no accidents,' the timer had clicked to 10,000. A Boga apprentice was summoned the next morning to move the tube into a secure storage warehouse. A few hundred years passed and it was moved again, and then a firestorm wiped out all records of Dale's hibernation. The Boga priests knew that it would have been illegal so no digital documentation had been made, only had written ones – which all burned up.

Dale was forgotten about; clouded and hidden by the Dark Side from all the force users near him. The warehouse materials were all moved off planet and his hibernation tube was lost in the paperwork shuffle. The centuries turned, and soon no one alive knew of this Luminous One. What was meant to be an unconscious passage of time was anything but for Dale.

His stasis was in a dark side nexus, and the Boga energy affected him greatly. His mind soared at possibilities and slowly the concept of force directed sorcery began to take shape. Over hundreds of years he learned what would one day become the basis of dark magic. Dale's consciousness roamed across the galaxy as well, and encountered other force using beings. Some friendly, some not, and yet he was able to learn from all of them; observing and hearing their unconscious thoughts. His powers in the force grew and went beyond anything he had been taught, had observed, or even read about. When he awoke he would wield two lightsabers in combat, while several others rotated and fought alongside him being directed by parts of his consciousness. A feat not easily mastered.

Dale spent roughly sixty percent of the time in the hibernation tube unconscious, but his mind was still active for forty percent of the time. When the hibernetic tube's timer finally went off his mind had been active for approximately four thousand years subtly learning the ways of the force, from numerous minds throughout the galaxy, and under the influence of a dark nexus. The location where his hibernation tube had been moved to was the sub-basement of what had become a mental institution for the insane. In the basement Dale would spend the next few years hidden.

Those with enough credits shipped off their problems to this particular institution as it agreed to long term housing and healing of patients from across the Galactic Republic. When Dale's machine went off and he came out of his hibernetic trance his mind was far afield of sanity. The Boga energy had concealed his tube from location, and it took days before he crawled out and was met by those patients who evaded security and wandered the sub-basement hallways.

At first they thought he was a monster, but after a short while they started bringing him smuggled food. Dale couldn't talk yet, and his writing was atrocious. When the patients got through to him to try and write his name, so they could call him something his hands trembled so much that all they could read for sure were the first two letters. "Da" and the rest were nearly unreadable. Some thought there were two other letters, but others said three. His "L" looked like a "t" to many, and his "e" like an "h" to some. A few thought there might be a letter between the "Da" and the "th." After a week of discussion among the mentally questionable inmates, and with little input from Dale, they named him Darth.

The dark side of the force was flowing strongly in him at this point, and he asked them for writing materials and began work on his great masterpieces. His energies wrapped the sub-basement and the authorities above never knew of his existence. In time his subconscious reached out to sixteen people who started bringing him food, clothes, blankets, and writing supplies. These sixteen his subconscious choose very deliberately, for all were force sensitive to one degree or another.

It's amazing how many force sensitive people get in trouble and labeled "mentally" unfit to live among their species, and how few institutions are really prepared to deal with them. The large fifteen story building above Dale, or Darth as the inmates called him, was just such a place. There were a number of force sensitive beings and soon twelve women and four men were picked by his subconscious and they started caring for Darth. During his recovery he began to write.

After a year Darth had completed his first edition of his four books. Each was 200 pages long, but the writing was nearly unreadable as such to all but Darth himself. Somewhere around the six month time frame he had begun to speak in Galactic basic, but was still more animalistic than any of his sixteen helpers could truly understand. After getting the basic outline of his four books down on paper that first year his mind slowly began to heal itself.

The second year was spent re-writing those four books, making them more readable and expanding on them. By the end of that year all four books had grown to 250 pages each, and his helpers could actually read some of his writings, at least those small parts he showed to them. His subconscious had started using the Ashla side of the force during this second year to heal his mind, and the slow process of healing the minds of his chosen ones.

The third year passed quickly, his speech improved back to the point prior to his forced hibernation ten thousand years earlier. Darth's mind was fully back under his own control. Dale had accepted the name Darth for that's what it had been the past two years, and he decided it was best to let his old self be truly dead to the Galaxy. He re-wrote his books for a third and final time during this period, extending each of them to 300 pages with more detail on the subject than even he thought possible. It was as if the Boga was putting the information down itself, and using Darth to convey it in terms that finite beings would understand.

The four monstrous manuals were the foundation stones of what would become dark side force sorcery. There were individual spells useful in combat and quickly applied, there were long intricate rituals covering a near infinite number of situations. There were topics on imbuing jewelry with the force, rings, amulets, staffs and wands each with different abilities. There were topics on galactic scale magics and sub-atomic affects. The scope of the four books was truly staggering.

History would show how the first four books disappeared just after Darth had re-written second series. No one could say how or where in the galaxy they ended up. The same mysterious fate awaited his second copies as well. The third copies of his magic system Darth kept with him at all times in a special backpack that he had taken to wearing under his cloak.

During his second year when his mind and spirit were still in the process of being healed he had started to take the twelve women followers as lovers, rotating them each weekly. He had also begun the process of training the four males as bodyguards. All sixteen were force sensitive to one degree or another, and Darth's sub-conscious was working overtime to bring them out of their various insanities.

The third year was much more physical in all aspects. The men were trained in the martial arts by Darth and started to understand how to use the force in primitive aggressive ways during combat. The twelve women became his coven of witches and began to learn his sorcery systems. He was much more aggressive in their teaching, and their physical joining. It was one part of the Boga that called to him, and began to balance out the Ashla he was using to heal their minds.

A plan began to take shape in Darth's mind by the end of the third year. He saw the Darth name as representing the Boga energy, and took the Ashla name itself for balance. He became known as Darth Ashla during that fourth year. The men had gathered various improvised martial arts training weapons and he began teaching them different styles of lightsaber combat. A slight defensive style, a moderate mixed style, and a couple of aggressive styles each coupled with the force enhancing their capabilities, speed, strength, timing and awareness. He was also experimenting with his own new style of lightsaber combat where he would wield two weapons, and have a few others flying around attacking on their own at the same time.

The women began to specialize in different areas of his sorcery teachings. A few were more comfortable with the traditional Boga force techniques, but all learned to participate in the large scale rituals. Each started to learn the arts of trickery, deception, seduction, and torture. He also taught them some basic lightsaber skills, but only a mixed moderate style for he did not envision his witches relying on a blade to overcome their opponents. They each specialized in different mind magics, some illusions, and some spell casting forms.

During this time the witches brought him blueprints of the institution, and its attached start port landing area. They obtained flight patterns, food shipments, inmate arrival times, and started bringing improvised mechanical and survival gear down to the sub-basement. Darth Ashla's plan of escape was nearing fruition. He was gathering needed supplies for himself and his followers.

In his own time he was writing a fifth fiendish folio of male oriented warlock spells that he kept for himself, even as he shared most of his other four books teachings; although never too many with any one of his twelve female witch concubines. All sixteen were as normal as they had ever been, and all sixteen were committed to the Boga energy of the galaxy. Twelve witches, his coven. They coveted power, and gave him anything he wanted for the slightest touch of it. The four men were ready to lay down their life for their dark lord and his teachings.

Darth Ashla's plan was simple. One night they simply made their way up from the sub-basement and killed all the guards that they encountered on the way to the space port landing area, taking their weapons as they went. Darth Ashla used his force grip to break their necks before they could make a sound. Once at the space port there were only two ships there. A generic transport ship that was half unloaded with delivery supplies, and the emergency escape freighter. After subduing the half dozen sleeping individuals found in the space port the freighter was disabled, and all sixteen students along with their master took the transport ship and went into low orbit.

Around mid-night Darth Ashla led the witches in a ritual summoning a huge force lighting storm that destroyed the institution over the course of the next hour, leaving no one alive. What the witches didn't know about the ritual was that the deaths of all the people released their force energy and Darth Ashla absorbed a part of it, making him stronger. Once the place was in ruins they took the transport out of the core and flew out to the outer rim planets. After several days in mediation Darth Ashla picked Attone-B; a planet which was filled with gamblers, smugglers, slavers, bounty hunters, and general low life types that did a large business in the black market.

It was easy to locate and take over a prosperous building. The witches were proving very able at mind manipulation and soon Darth Ashla had the technology to build his group a set of lightsabers. The artificial crystals necessary would take some time to grow and refine, even being enhanced as they were by the Boga energies that Darth Ashla poured into them. They stayed on that planet a little over a year.

During that time Darth Ashla took possession of four female slaves from the market. He used their bodies in terrible ways, feeding the Boga side of his spirit with their sufferings and humiliations. He continued to join with his twelve witches, a different one every week. The master continued to teach all sixteen the ways of the dark side of the force, but specialized it to each individual. There were very few group sessions, and those centered on lightsaber combat. After six months each student had a crimson red lightsaber on one side of their belt, along with a blaster of their choice and at least one vibro-blade in addition to any other items they decided upon. The master carried several.

All the witches wore various pieces of force enhanced jewelry which would allow them to call upon greater amounts of Boga energy for various effects. The men all wore armor of some sort, but none of it matched one of the other men. They looked life four bounty hunters to the average eye, but they were far, far more dangerous. Darth Ashla had trained all sixteen in rudimentary assassination techniques as well, along with various poisons, and martial art techniques.

During the year on Attone-B Darth Ashla composed another dark sorcery foundational text he called his spell compendium. When it was finished he felt drained of the Boga energy, as if it guided his hand and took all his will to complete his written works. In time all six books would spread throughout the galaxy and form the basis of most, if not all, magical force systems. It was one of his great legacies to the force, along with his name. In future generations the great Boga masters would all take Darth as a title, but for Darth Ashla it was simply his name.

After a year Darth Ashla felt it was time to be moving onward. The Je'daii might come looking for him, and he wasn't ready to turn over his followers to the Boga priests, or even the Luminous order if it still existed. It was 16,000 BBY although year counting was not noted in that fashion yet. His group had acquired a good deal of wealth and influence over the past year. He had made sure to purchase a larger more lustrous freighter. One with better weapons, better defense, quicker speed, and more long term comforts than the transport freighter they had made their way here on. That ship had been sold early in their stay.

Darth Ashla had all sixteen summon their compatriots from the settlements that they had made, and then tested each of them individually making sure that killing their new friends wasn't a problem. A small amount of Boga energy was absorbed each time. He had come up with seven different types of rituals to absorb energy from the death of individuals, but each was only a slight variation on a theme. After all sixteen had once again proven their loyalty to him, and the dark side of the force, Darth Ashla had them board the waiting space freighter named "Specter," and await his arrival.

The next act of the Boga force was the final slaughter of his four female slaves. After taking each of them again, he beheaded them using a force wielded lightsaber striking on its own. It was a very dark ritual killing practice that granted more force energy then the causal killings of his apprentice's victims. While some time passed during this ritual his apprentices spent it in quiet mediation, learning to further focus their minds and wills.

Eventually Darth Ashla boarded and the ship took off into a low orbit. This time he summoned his witches and the storm they brought forth destroyed the entire city, instead of just a building. It still only took an hour, and there was much energy released this time for Darth Ashla to absorb. The force had shown him what to do, and now he set about his plan. At this point he was out of force balance, tilting heavily to the Boga side.

For the next three years the group planet hopped around the galaxy, using their combined powers of Boga force to conceal their presence from the Je'daii. Darth Ashla continued to train all sixteen of his followers in the ways of the force, lightsaber combat, and dark sorcery. They would fly a pattern around the atmosphere of each planet until Darth Ashla pointed out a place to land. His ability to detect the subtle maturations of the force surpassed any of his students.

On each planet there was a force nexus, some greater than others. Each of these nexus points was stronger either in the Boga or the Ashla. Darth Ashla didn't care which, for his point was to perform an elaborate ritual and absorb as much as he could. His body changed over the years, beginning to absorb more and more energy each time. All of his force powers accelerated and expanded. Even his followers began to write about him, and their experiences with the great dark master. They would later be told as Sith Stories of legend, but for his followers watching Darth Ashla crush a star ship with the force, or cause a sun to implode killing the life on a nearby planet wasn't a legendary story, but something they witnessed first-hand.

They also witnessed him heal the sick with Ashla, curing the blind and making the lame walk again. He tried to explain the concept of impeccability, but it was lost on his followers. He also searched all the Galactic Republic records he could find, but there was no longer any mention of the Luminous Order. Apparently the Je'daii had succeeded in finally wiping it out. Any sect that used both sides of the force was no longer acceptable, and so Darth Ashla stopped showing his followers any abilities found through the Ashla side of the universe.

As his powers grew so did his dreams and visions. That year he contacted a force being he referenced simply as the Father. They stayed in touch via dream visions, for the Father said that in Darth Ashla he had found a near equal. True Immortality was now upon him, as the force essence of the planets he absorbed changed him. Darth Ashla was no longer a finite being; which allowed the two sides of the force to flow through him. He was becoming a piece of the infinite which still held onto a finite body. The Father would comment on it occasionally, for they had contact at least once a month telepathically.

The ship passed unnoticed everywhere it went. Darth Ashla would simply wipe the minds of any who came close enough to see the ship. A battle cruiser with over three hundred soldiers once went past them easily in physical seeing distance, and none of the ship's crew remembered the encounter. By the end of that year Darth Ashla was beginning to form some longer term plans which he didn't share with his followers. Sometime during this year they had started to grumble that they weren't given a part of the force energy themselves. The seeds of rebellion where planted by the Boga, but of course Darth Ashla had been reading their minds and knew which of his followers were loyal.

The next five years were spent on the city-covered planet, Coruscant. It was the vibrant heart and capital of the galaxy, and a perfect place to blend in. Darth Ashla decided to try his hand at some long term planning right under the nose of the Je'daii. He unleashed his sixteen apprentices upon every layer of society. Their influence grew, as did their powers. In time Darth Ashla knew he would release them, and they would go their own ways; find their own apprentices, and continue the line of the Boga.

Darth Ashla began plotting and planning, laying plans that would take centuries to come to fruition. He also kept close tabs on his apprentices, for four of them began to plot his downfall. Little did they know that he had become truly immortal, drawing on the life essence of twenty billion souls to fuel the final step of his ascension. Even if they killed his mortal form now his very being would simply overwhelm and possess another mortal body, but they didn't need to know that. The Father had been very specific with his instruction, and he treated the apprentices in the same way the Father treated his son and daughter, both who embodied one aspect of the force.

Like the being known only as the Father, Darth Ashla embodied both sides of the force, but not equally now. He had not ever truly been equal. His training under XornY had been overwhelmingly Ashla, and for the past decade he had chosen a path of overwhelming Boga activities. Darth Ashla blamed that on his ten thousand year force hibernation in part, and in part on his desire to seek revenge on those who caused it. Over the five years on Coruscant he had used his influence to try and find any remnant of those priests who had trapped him, but they were all long gone.

He gathered his followers together one day and informed them of his plan. He was going to send them out four at a time; one male and three females. They would each be going to a different heavily populated planet and their they would blend in and bend the population to their wills. He told them that they could look for their own apprentices, and go their own ways. All sixteen seemed to appreciate what he was telling them, and he told them to begin making preparations to leave and that within a month he would be sending them out.

Darth Ashla began summoning them one at a time to his base of operations giving them private instruction. After exactly one month the first group took a space freighter and left, but only one male and two females were on it. The third witch was tied up, for she was one of the betrayers. Darth Ashla would use her body daily. He told the others that each group would launch one month later, so as to help obscure their leaving and long term plans.

A month later another ship left with one male and two females on it. Another witch joined the first betrayer and was tortured daily, usually with lightning. The other two betrayers didn't even know. They each thought the two missing members had been sent off with one of the first two groups. Once Darth Ashla had announced plans to let them go their plans to betray him had evaporated; however, he would not let their treachery go unpunished.

The next month saw three witches go on their own, and their male escort joined his betrayers in the torture area of the warehouse. This one wanted action, so his punishment was immobility and watching Darth Ashla abuse the other two members of the betraying conspiracy.

A month later the last ship launched again with one male and two female witches headed for the fourth planet that Darth Ashla had picked out. This witch was brought to the holding area where the other three were and was forced into submission with her mind being over-whelmed. What he did with her made the other three wince in pain, and yet she never yelled out for her mind was far afield from her body. These four would plot his destruction for the rest of their lives, and that was how the Boga wanted it. Darth Ashla knew what he was doing when he released them all together on a ship. They would go to a fifth planet and destroy its civilization, gaining power to wreck revenge upon him. The Boga side would and should always have a bit of treachery and revenge fueling it, and these four would bring that in abundance. Over the years the rivalry he set up naturally blossom as the five civilizations now under his former followers command competed with each other.

Once all his former followers were gone Darth Ashla left for his final destination. He had acquired a deep space exploration starship with four separate droids aboard it that could run the ship by themselves. It was the latest state of the empire ship, droids, and cargo which he went off with. Deep into unknown space he travelled until he set down on an unnamed planet. There he was close to a well spring of Ashla force; a nexus of light side potential. Darth Ashla had much healing to do if he was to come close to regaining his original luminous roots of neutrality.

He had unleashed dark sorcery upon the Galaxy, along with sixteen proto type dark side users. Uncounted deaths were upon him; even as he had flown to this planet he had used the force to crush a few starships which had impeded his flight. Here on Planet X, as he called it, he began communing with the living force, and again with the being which called itself simply 'the father.' Darth Ashla's Galactic force seeing, sensing, divining, and influencing powers grew.

His former apprentices would all one day come looking for him, but none could fathom him living in a light side nexus, and non-ever found him. In time, to honor him, they took his first name as a title and birthed to the Galaxy the Darth title associated with true Sith Lords. He was forgotten, but he had the strange distinction of becoming one with the force – an immortal like the Father or his children, but different. His mortal frame eventually gave out, and his body would reform out of star dust when necessary. He became much more of an intelligence without form, but that could form a physical body when necessary.

Over the centuries he would occasionally take out a new body for a decade spin around the galaxy. Checking on the lines of his former apprentices, causing havoc, and sometimes acting as a simple healer depending on what his force luminous spirit needed at that time. Now only the Father knows if he even exists anymore, and he's not telling anyone. So when you are in deep space, and get the feeling something is watching you – perhaps someone is. May the force be with you.

12


End file.
